While most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about the keys they tap all day, mechanical keyboard enthusiasts certainly do. As interest in DIY keyboards expands, there are plenty of things to obsess over, such as keycap sets, layout, knobs, and switches. But you have to get deep into the hobby before you realize there's something more important than all that: the stabilizers.

Even if you have the fanciest switches and a monolithic aluminum case, bad stabilizers can make a keyboard feel and sound like garbage. Luckily, there's a growing ecosystem of weirdly fancy stabilizers that can upgrade your typing experience, packing an impressive amount of innovation into a few tiny bits of plastic and metal.

What is a stabilizer, and why should you care?

Most keys on a keyboard are small enough that they go up and down evenly, no matter where you press. That's not the case for longer keys: Space, Enter, Shift, Backspace, and, depending on the layout, a couple more on the number pad. These keys have wire assemblies underneath called stabilizers, which help them go up and down when the switch does.

Three different stabilizers mounted on a test platform.

Ryan Whitwam

 

These are 2-unit stabilizers for keys like Enter and Shift.

 

A cheap stabilizer will do this, but it won't necessarily do it well. Stabilizers can be loud and move unevenly, or a wire can even pop out and really ruin your day. But what's good? A stabilizer is there to, well, stabilize, and that's all it should do. It facilitates smooth up and down movement of frequently used keys—if stabilizers add noise, friction, or wobble, they're not doing their job and are, therefore, bad. Most keyboards have bad stabilizers.

Stabilizer stems poke up through the plate to connect to your keycaps.

Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Like switches, most stabilizers are based on the old-school Cherry Inc. designs, but the specifics have morphed in recent years. Stabilizers have to adhere to certain physical measurements to properly mount on PCBs and connect to standard keycaps. However, designers have come up with a plethora of creative ways to modify and improve stabilizers within that envelope. And yes, premium stabilizers really are better.

A world of options

The stabilizers in most retail boards aren't anything special—they're just knock-offs of the classic Cherry designs that sound and perform poorly. A modest upgrade might be the venerable GMK screw-in stabilizer. GMK stabilizers are produced from the original Cherry molds, so they're compact and inexpensive, and they fit well in almost all boards. But there is an even higher echelon of luxury available.

Some stabilizers make fairly minor changes to mounting and internal geometry to great effect. For example, Zeal V2 Stabilizers look like the classic Cherry variety, but they have clear housings, beefed-up mounting hardware, vintage-style "pre-clipped" sliders, and snazzy gold-anodized hardware (which you will admittedly almost never see).

Partially assembled Zeal V2 stabilizers.

Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Looking for more innovation? Some stabs use multiple materials in pursuit of better performance. Swagkeys Knight stabilizers (top image) use a double-shot mold to offer polycarbonate plastic on the exterior with a softer silicone internal surface where the wires touch. Another designer, Wuque Studio, has versions of its stabilizer with a similar internal silicone surface or one with the silicone layer on the metal wire. And there are keyboard people who believe one approach or the other is clearly superior.

There are also some newer takes on key stabilization that eschew the traditional stem shape. Take, for example, the Typeplus x YiKB stabs with their "chiral" housing—instead of having identical left and right housings, the left and right sides are mirror images. The wires end in small hooks that lock them into the sliders. This design prevents wires from popping out and is more friendly to under- or over-lubrication. They're also made from a stronger polyketone thermoplastic, whereas most stabilizers are ABS or polycarbonate.

Typeforce stabilizers have hooked wires that connect to their unique sliders.

Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The Typeplus kit is also an example of all the fiddly little accessories that come with fancy stabilizers (and some of the best packaging I've ever seen for a product that costs under $20). There are washers for the screws, shims for thinner PCBs, and Teflon landing pads for the sliders. It's common to see a whole range of mounting hardware accessories included with fancy stabilizers, allowing for intricate customization.

These $20 stabilizers have better packaging than any phone of the past five years.

Credit: Ryan Whitwam

This is just scratching the surface—stabilizers come in more shapes, colors, and styles than we could reasonably cover here. And they're all superior to the cheap parts used in the average retail mechanical keyboard.

More art than science

Buying a cleverly designed set of stabilizers for a keyboard is a good start, but you then have to install them correctly. Stabilizers are the "inner-most" component, sandwiched between the PCB and the switch plate. If the keyboard doesn't exist yet because you're building from a custom board from a kit, great—install the stabilizers first. Forgetting the stabilizers is a mistake you only make once.

Swagkeys stabilizers mounted to a PCB.

Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Everyone has their own way of tuning stabilizers, some of which may be little more than superstition. Maybe you want to use foam landing pads or wire guides, check every wire for warping in just the right way, or apply a preferred industrial lubricant to the wires. Some people even use different kinds of lubricant for plastic-plastic versus plastic-metal junctions. However arduous the plan, it's worth the time if you get good results that save you from an annoying rattle.

Replacing stabilizers (or going back to install them because you forgot) means completely disassembling the board, and that's particularly annoying if the switches are soldered in. In that case, you'll have to spend a few grueling hours with a desoldering iron to get to the stabilizers, which we do not recommend. Modern mechanical keyboards with hotswap switches make this much easier.

Like many hobbyists, keyboard fans have been hit hard by new US tariffs. Most custom keyboards and components are manufactured overseas and imported, and the import charge for a full kit can run into hundreds of dollars. Stabilizers aren't immune to that—GMK stabilizers come from Germany, Zeal is in Canada, and almost everything else is shipping straight from China.

Fancy stabilizers often come with numerous fiddly little mounting accessories.

Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Still, a good-quality set of stabilizers, properly installed and lubricated, is probably the best upgrade you can make to a mechanical keyboard.

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Posted Saturday 27 September 2025 at 12:37 pm AEST (my time).

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One of September's biggest game launches has been the arrival of Borderlands 4 — Gearbox Software's long-awaited co-op looter shooter, and the first new mainline entry in the franchise since 2019's Borderlands 3. It released on September 12 to positive reviews from critics, and quickly attracted a very large player base across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5.

But while the title has received high praise for the quality of its gameplay, story, and presentation, something it's gotten quite a bit of criticism for is its performance, along with the absence of some key features on console like a field-of-view (FOV) slider and a toggle for motion blur. As a result, the game fell to a "Mixed" rating at launch, and hasn't risen above it since.

In the past couple weeks, Gearbox has put out a few patches for the PC version of the game to improve its stability, though players on Xbox and PS5 have still been waiting. On Thursday morning, though, another new update was released for both PC and console.

The patch is available to download now across all of Borderlands 4's platforms, and is the biggest one the developers have published since release. And in addition to implementing more fixes for performance and some notable gameplay tweaks, it's also brought an FOV slider to the console versions of the FPS.

In late 2024, the Raspberry Pi Foundation launched the Raspberry Pi 500, integrating its latest Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer into a keyboard with useful, everyday-use ports for quick and easy usage as a computer. Today, the company brought out an enhanced version of that release, calling the new Raspberry Pi 500+ its "most polished product yet."

Ditching the old membrane design, the new keyboard housing the computer features mechanical keys using Gateron KS-33 Blue switches with custom RAL 7001 Silver Grey stems. Each key is equipped with an RGB LED that can work in unison to offer programmable backlighting. "Each custom-designed low-profile keycap is spray painted and then laser etched to allow the backlight to shine through the legend," adds the company.

For those who want to use their own keys, the foundation confirmed that the 500+ keyboard is compatible with "most aftermarket keycap sets," with even a key puller being included in the package.

Looking at the internals, the Pi 500+ has a 2.4GHz quad-core Arm Cortex-A76 CPU and 16GB of LPDDR4X-4267 SDRAM inside it. It also has a 256GB M.2 SSD with Raspberry Pi OS preinstalled, alongside a separate microSD card slot. A prying tool is bundled with the package for opening the keyboard and accessing its insides and swapping out parts.

The device also features Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, a 40-pin GPIO header, and two micro HDMI ports with 4K 60FPS support.

The Raspberry Pi 500+ is now available with a $200 price tag. The company also sells a $220 Desktop Kit edition that bundles with it the Raspberry Pi Mouse, the official 27W USB-C Power Supply, a 2-meter micro HDMI to HDMI cable, and a physical copy of the Raspberry Pi Beginner's Guide 5th Edition.

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Posted Friday 26 September 2025 at 7:29 am AEST (my time).

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Apple has demanded Brussels scrap its landmark Big Tech legislation, marking a step up in US tech giants’ fight against European oversight.

The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which entered into force in 2022, aims to curb the power of Big Tech and level the playing field for smaller rivals, with fines of up to 10 percent of global revenue for companies that do not comply.

Apple’s call to repeal the law comes at a time of transatlantic tensions over the EU’s digital rule book, including the DMA.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to punish countries that “discriminate” against US companies with higher tariffs, and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has personally lobbied Trump against the DMA.

“The DMA should be repealed while a more appropriate fit for purpose legislative instrument is put in place,” the iPhone maker said in its response to a routine call for feedback on the Digital Markets Act.

The EU fined Apple €500 million in April following an investigation into whether the company’s rules prevented app developers from sending consumers to cheaper offers for products and services outside Apple’s ecosystem.

In June, the company announced changes to its app store policy in an attempt to avoid being further penalized by Brussels.

Apple argues the bloc’s digital rules have made it harder to do business in Europe and worsened consumers’ experience.

In a post on Thursday, the company said the DMA was leaving European consumers with fewer choices and creating an unfair competitive landscape—contrary to the law’s own goals.

For example, Apple said it had had to delay certain features, such as live translation via its AirPods, to make sure they complied with the DMA’s requirement for “interoperability.” The EU rules specify that apps and devices made by one company need to work with those made by competitors.

“Despite our concerns with the DMA, teams across Apple are spending thousands of hours to bring new features to the European Union while meeting the law’s requirements. But it’s become clear that we can’t solve every problem the DMA creates,” the company said.

A European Commission spokesperson said it was normal that companies sometimes “need more time to make their products compliant” and that the commission was helping companies to do so.

The spokesperson also said that “DMA compliance is not optional, it’s an obligation.”

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Posted Friday 26 September 2025 at 4:05 am AEST (my time).

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Trusted Platform Module and Secure Boot are low-level features that are usually managed outside the operating system. You cannot toggle them in Windows, so less tech-savvy users might not even know about their existence or how to turn them on. To make life easier for such users, Valve is adding TPM/Secure Boot checks to the Steam client.

The latest Steam beta release added a single Windows-related change. Now, users can go to Help > System Information and see whether Secure Boot and Trusted Platform Module are enabled. Here is the changelog:

• Added detecting if Secure Boot and a TPM are enabled on the current machine. This information is displayed under Help > System Information. It is now also collected when opting into the Steam Hardware Survey.

Unfortunately, Steam won't tell you how to enable Secure Boot and Trusted Platform Module on your system, so you are on your own on this one. Still, it is a welcome change that will make these two technologies more known among gamers who might not care whether their systems have some obscure security features. What they care about is why the latest Call of Duty is not launching, and the Steam client will help figure that out.

Speaking of Steam updates, Valve recently announced that support for 32-bit Windows 10 is ending on January 1, 2026. While the previous versions of the client will continue working for a while, Valve urges users to switch to 64-bit Windows installations to continue receiving updates and support from Valve.

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Posted Friday 26 September 2025 at 4:05 am AEST (my time).

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The Reinforcements DLC for Sins of a Solar Empire II that Stardock announced earlier this month is now ready for launch. This latest premium add-on is only the second piece of DLC to hit the game since the Paths to Power scenario pack, and it adds on brand-new ships as well as faction-specific win conditions for the endgame. Check out the launch trailer for the DLC above.

Per the developer, the new Command Ships sit between Capital Ships and Titans when it comes to their versatility. When deployed inside late-game fleets, Command Ships will be able to offer "devastating firepower, unique abilities, and strategic utility."

Stardock describes each of the new Command Ships like this:

• TEC Enclave – Takadaran Command Fortress: A massive support platform doubling as a mobile cruiser-scale shipyard, capable of producing TEC cruisers in the field.
• TEC Primacy – Khevarkov Modular Battleship: A high-speed strike vessel with customizable hardpoints for railguns, missiles, or hangar bays.
• Vasari Alliance – Sularkon Tyrant: A city-ship fortress with integrated Phase Gate, designed to lock down entire sectors.
• Vasari Exodus – Anarkrul Wanderer: A colossal refugee-carrier turned warship, bristling with defenses and heavy strikecraft support.
• Advent Wrath – Oblivia Dreadnought: A heavily armored frontline warship wielding a devastating Super Heavy PsiKinetic Lance.
• Advent Reborn – Justicia Dreadnought: A vertical dreadnought that grows deadlier as allies fall, culminating in catastrophic retaliation.

The new win conditions are The Departure, Mass Conversion, and Super Novalith Offensive. To start, the Vasari have to build Arkships to escape the sector through a star. As for Advent players, they must deploy a mass conversion wave using planetary structures to turn more star systems into loyal territory. Lastly, the Trader Emergency Coalition has to build a Novalith cannon that can destroy entire planets to forcefully bring peace throughout systems for their unique win.

Sins of a Solar Empire II Reinforcements DLC is now available across Steam and Epic Games Store with a $14.99 standalone price tag. Owners of the game's Premium Edition or the Content Pass will gain access to the DLC for no extra charge. Following this, coming up next in the DLC content plan are the Harbinger and Times of War expansions.

Disclaimer: Neowin's relationship to Stardock

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Posted Friday 26 September 2025 at 4:02 am AEST (my time).

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Microsoft Flight Simulator World Updates don't land often, but they carry a massive amount of visual upgrades to terrain and cities when they do. Today at the Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft unveiled World Update 20, and matching the occasion, it's focused entirely on Japan. Watch the reveal trailer above for some glimpses of the newly upgraded regions.

World Update 20 is being described as one of the largest content drops for Flight Simulator so far, bringing increased detail to cities Tokyo, Osaka, Sapporo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima. The company has collaborated with Bing Maps, Gaya, and Asobo to use photogrammetry and TIN (triangulated irregular network) surface texturing for the visual and terrain upgrades seen across 23 areas of interest.

At the same time, 67 points of interest have been added for players to visit during their flights across the country. This includes Osaka Castle, Akinada Bridge, Shosanbetsu Observatory, Enoshima Sea Candle, and the Fukuoka Tower.

The update carries five handcrafted airports from the region as well:

• Hokkaido Spaceport (JP-0052): Also known as Taiki Multi-Purpose Aerospace Park, this facility is located outside of Taiki Town on the island of Hokkaido and comprises a single asphalt runway.
• Kitakyushu Airport (RJFR): Built on an artificial island outside of Kitakyushu on the Seto Island Sea, this airport comprises a single asphalt / concrete runway and is one of six in Japan that operates 24 hours per day.
• Rishiri Airport (RJER): located near the town of Rishiri on the volcanic island of Rishiri, the airport has a single asphalt runway.
• Sado Airport (RJSD): Located in the city of Sado, on the island of Sado, the facility has a single asphalt runway.
• Satsuma Iōjima Airport (RJX7): A private airfield in the village of Mishima, on the island of Iōjima, which comprises a single asphalt runway.

Aside from the visual and accuracy upgrades, three discovery flights, three landing challenges, one bush trip, and one spotlight event are also a part of the update, letting players explore the land via curated missions.

World Update 20 is now available for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 and Microsoft Flight Simulator as a free download. Don't forget that the latest entry was just announced for Sony's PlayStation 5 platform too.

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Posted Friday 26 September 2025 at 4:01 am AEST (my time).

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The rumors turned out to be true, and Forza Horizon 6 is now official. At Tokyo Game Show 2025, Microsoft and Playground Games revealed the game's teaser, which shows the franchise's next location: the long-rumored and highly anticipated Japan.

Forza Horizon 6 currently has no specific release date, and full details remain unknown. What is known is that the game will be released first on PC and Xbox Series X|S. Game Pass subscribers will also get to play the game on day one. As for PlayStation, Playground Games says it is working with Turn 10 Studios on bringing Forza Horizon 6 to the Japanese console post-launch. This will leave Forza Horizon 5 the only Forza game on PlayStation 5 for some time.

Unfortunately, a short teaser is currently all we have. Fans of the franchise will have to wait a little longer, as Playground Games plans to release more details about the game in 2026:

In Forza Horizon 6, you will get to discover a scenic and breathtaking Japan, where you will build up your racing status to become a Legend at the Horizon Festival.

 

As you already know, Japan has been one of the most iconic and requested locations by the Forza Horizon community. We are so excited for you to experience it, and we can't wait to share more details on Forza Horizon 6 early next year. Stay tuned!

The Forza Horizon series was conceived in the late days of the Xbox 360 generation. The first title was set in Colorado, while the second installment moved to Europe. Forza Horizon 3 brought the festival to Australia and became the first Forza Horizon game available on PC. After that, Playground Games released Forza Horizon 4 with its UK setting, and Forza Horizon 5 brought the game to Mexico. Now, it is time for Forza Horizon 6 in Japan.

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Posted Friday 26 September 2025 at 3:59 am AEST (my time).

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The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 SoC (system-on-chip) comes with Qualcomm's third-generation Oryon CPU, featuring two Prime cores running up to 4.6GHz and six Performance cores reaching up to 3.62GHz. Qualcomm says that this should bring a performance improvement of 20% compared to its predecessor and up to 35% better power efficiency as well, while the overall SoC improvement is at 16%. The Adreno GPU on this is also improved as per Qualcomm, delivering up to 23% better gaming performance and 20% less power consumption.

AI is at the center of this year's value proposition of the SoC, and its Hexagon Neural Processing Unit (NPU) is now 37% faster and 16% more efficient, optimized for individualized, context-aware AI experiences, according to Qualcomm. The chip maker also says that it's pioneering “agentic AI,” bringing more advanced, on-device agents that can learn, automate, and naturally interact with users.

Qualcomm's NPU gains can also be seen with its X2 Elite and Extreme processors, announced earlier at the Snapdragon Summit 2025, which will power flagship ARM PCs.

Oppo also demonstrated on-device AI inference using the chip, exceeding 200 tokens per second and supporting a context length of up to 128K, which is the equivalent of roughly 200,000 words or 300 pages of text, entirely on the device.

There's good news for content creators as well, as the 8 Elite Gen 5 becomes the first mobile platform to support the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec, enabling near-lossless video capture and high flexibility in post-production editing. It also supports up to 48MP triple cameras and 108MP single sensors, with advanced features like Dragon Fusion computational imaging, context-aware autofocus, and a fully computational video pipeline.

For connectivity, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 integrates the X85 modem, which should offer significant reductions in gaming latency with AI-enhanced Wi-Fi. The chip also features full Unreal Engine 5 compatibility this year, with support for mesh shading, allowing better grouping of geometry in graphic-intensive games and enabling smarter GPU-driven rendering for better efficiency, as well as improved developer tools for graphics.

The first wave of smartphones powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is already on the way, led by the Xiaomi 17 series and soon with other brands like OnePlus, Honor, Oppo, Vivo, and more.

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Posted Friday 26 September 2025 at 3:57 am AEST (my time).

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Over 25 years after its original release, Deus Ex is getting a remaster. The project was announced today during Sony's State of Play presentation, but it is not an exclusive. The remaster is a collaborative work between Aspyr and Eidos-Montréal, aiming to bring the classic to modern platforms with a fresh coat of paint. Watch the brand-new Deus Ex Remastered trailer with comparison shots above.

Per the developer, the remaster will preserve the DNA of Deus Ex while improving almost every aspect of the classic. This includes modernizing every location with new lighting, dynamic shadows, particle systems, and upscaled textures, while characters are being rebuilt with fresh models, lip-synced dialogue, and ragdoll physics.

Support for multi-monitor and ultra-wide displays, auto saves, achievements, cloud saves, and more quality-of-life features are confirmed to be included.

Eidos-Montréal says that thanks to its work on Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, the console version of the new remaster will feature refined radial menus, fluid weapon management, and streamlined navigation for controller users as well.

For those unfamiliar with the title, the immersive sim RPG experience takes place in 2052, where a shadow government is shaping the land as societies quietly fall. Players take the role of JC Denton, a nano-augmented UNATCO operative that will travel across the world to uncover its secrets.

"Deus Ex has always been about freedom. When the original title first launched, it redefined what a video game could be, melding RPG elements, action and stealth gameplay, and branching player choices into a cyberpunk immersive sim like nobody else had ever tried," says Aspyr's Matthew Ray. "Today, those foundations remain intact, but they’ve been enhanced to ensure the experience feels as revolutionary in 2025 as it did in 2000."

Deus Ex Remastered is coming out on PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch on February 5, 2026, with a $29.99 price tag.

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Posted Thursday 25 September 2025 at 6:20 pm AEST (my time).

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Unlike Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V, which gave players an episodic structure for the campaign, Battlefield 6 is going back to offering a full storyline involving the same characters and objectives. This will take place across three continents, including tank battles across Egypt with pyramids in the distance, close-quarter squad gameplay on the streets of Brooklyn, and even HALO jumping behind enemy territory.

The campaign will have players taking control of Dagger 13, an Marine Raiders unit that's going up against the forces of Pax Armata, a "private military corporation seeking to reshape global power as NATO teeters on the edge of collapse."

The squad is made up of the following soldiers, with perspectives switching between them as the campaign progresses:

• Haz Carter: A former high school quarterback who chose the rugged allure of the wilderness over being a sports star. During his time in the Marines, Haz was recognized for his blend of athletic prowess and survival skills, ultimately joining the Marine Raiders, rising to become an Assault expert and the leader of the squad.
• Dylan Murphy: A warfighter who chose the frontlines over an officer’s career, Murphy’s courage and strategic thinking make him a vital member of Dagger as the team’s Engineer.
• Simone “Gecko” Espina: Gecko learned to be a hunter on her grandfather’s farm and carried her expertise at tracking and taking on the elements into her military career. An adrenaline fanatic, Gecko became a Special Forces Operator. As the newest member of Dagger, she’s ready to prove herself as the squad’s Recon expert.
• Cliff Lopez: Rejecting his parents’ wishes for him to go to med school, Lopez sought glory and adventure on the field of battle. Lopez wears his heart on his sleeve and as the squad’s Support is an essential member of the team.

"True to Battlefield, your squad is the key to accomplishing your mission in single player," creative director of the campaign Roman Campos-Oriola explains. "You’ll be able to command the rest of Dagger 13 to engage enemy forces as a group in order to suppress them as you reposition to snipe, flank them, or take out multiple foes with a well-thrown grenade."

Battlefield 6 is out on October 10 across PC (Steam, EA App, and Epic Games Store), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

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Posted Thursday 25 September 2025 at 6:20 pm AEST (my time).

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Today at Qualcomm's Snapdragon Summit, the company finally unveiled its next-generation wave of Arm-based PC chips. This time, we're getting two high-end system-on-a-chips (SoCs) in the form of a Snapdragon X2 Elite and Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme with even more performance designed to rival Apple's latest silicon.

Qualcomm has confirmed that these new chips won't launch until early next year, meaning we still have a number of months to wait before we can get our hands on this latest Snapdragon silicon. For now, the company has outlined how these chips are a huge improvement over the original Snapdragon X Elite, built on a new 3nm process that should make these chips more efficient.

The Snapdragon X2 Elite now features both 12- or 18-core configurations, with 6 performance cores and up to 12 prime cores, with a boost frequency up to 4.7GHz. Qualcomm says the X2 Elite boasts up to 31% faster performance at ISO power, while pulling 43% less power than the original Snapdragon X Elite. That translates to better overall performance and efficiency.

It's the same story in the GPU and NPU department. Qualcomm says the X2 Elite brings a 2.3X increase in performance per watt and power efficiency over the last gen Adreno GPU, though the company hasn't shared total TFLOPS output just yet. The NPU has also been upgraded, now sporting 80 TOPS of compute power compared to the 45 TOPS of the original generation. That should enable more complex and intensive AI compute workloads on device.

Be sure to check out our in-depth comparison between the Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X2 Elite, where we break down all the technical differences and improvements. Below, you'll find a spec table for all the new Snapdragon X2 Elite chips, including the X2 Elite Extreme:

Last month, Microsoft reached a market capitalization of $4 trillion predominantly due to its multibillion-dollar investment in generative AI. Part of the tech giant's success can also be attributed to co-founder and billionaire Bill Gates' efforts in software development. While the company has greatly benefitted from its software development efforts, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently highlighted his plans to move on beyond this strategy:

"When Bill founded Microsoft, he envisioned not just a software company, but a software factory, unconstrained by any single product or category. That idea has guided us for decades. But today, it's no longer enough."

Instead, the executive wants the company to shift focus to security, quality, and AI transformation as its core business priorities. Security doesn't come as a surprise, as the company has been increasing its efforts on this front for a while now, including holding top Microsoft executives accountable for cybersecurity by tying a section of their compensation packages to meeting the set security thresholds.

The AI bubble could be a pitfall for Microsoft

Larry Page and Sergey Brin met each other at a graduate student orientation at Stanford in 1996. Both were studying for their PhDs in computer science, and both were interested in analyzing large sets of data. Because the web was growing so rapidly, they decided to start a project to improve the way people found information on the Internet.

They weren’t the first to try this. Hand-curated sites like Yahoo had already given way to more algorithmic search engines like AltaVista and Excite, which both started in 1995. These sites attempted to find relevant webpages by analyzing the words on every page.

Page and Brin’s technique was different. Their “BackRub” software created a map of all the links that pages had to each other. Pages on a given subject that had many incoming links from other sites were given a higher ranking for that keyword. Higher-ranked pages could then contribute a larger score to any pages they linked to. In a sense, this was a like a crowdsourcing of search: When people put “This is a good place to read about alligators” on a popular site and added a link to a page about alligators, it did a better job of determining that page’s relevance than simply counting the number of times the word appeared on a page.

Step 1 of the simplified BackRub algorithm. It also stores the position of each word on a page, so it can make a 

further subset for multiple words that appear next to each other.

Jeremy Reimer.

 

Step 2 of the simplified BackRub algorithm. Mathematically, this “random walk” is called a Markov chain.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Step 3 of the simplified BackRub algorithm. Sometimes it will get trapped in small groups with no way out, so 

15 percent of the time, it jumps to another random page.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Creating a connected map of the entire World Wide Web with indexes for every word took a lot of computing power. The pair filled their dorm rooms with any computers they could find, paid for by a $10,000 grant from the Stanford Digital Libraries Project. Many were cobbled together from spare parts, including one with a case made from imitation LEGO bricks. Their web scraping project was so bandwidth-intensive that it briefly disrupted the university’s internal network. Because neither of them had design skills, they coded the simplest possible “home page” in HTML.

In August 1996, BackRub was made available as a link from Stanford’s website. A year later, Page and Brin rebranded the site as “Google.” The name was an accidental misspelling of googol, a term coined by a mathematician’s young son to describe a 1 with 100 zeros after it. Even back then, the pair was thinking big.

By mid-1998, their prototype was getting over 10,000 searches a day. Page and Brin realized they might be onto something big. It was nearing the height of the dotcom mania, so they went looking for some venture capital to start a new company.

But at the time, search engines were considered passée. The new hotness was portals, sites that had some search functionality but leaned heavily into sponsored content. After all, that’s where the big money was. Page and Brin tried to sell the technology to AltaVista for $1 million, but its parent company passed. Excite also turned them down, as did Yahoo.

Frustrated, they decided to hunker down and keep improving their product. Brin created a colorful logo using the free GIMP paint program, and they added a summary snippet to each result. Eventually, the pair received $100,000 from angel investor Andy Bechtolsheim, who had co-founded Sun Microsystems. That was enough to get the company off the ground.

Page and Brin were careful with their money, even after they received millions more from venture capitalist firms. They preferred cheap commodity PC hardware and the free Linux operating system as they expanded their system. For marketing, they relied mostly on word of mouth. This allowed Google to survive the dotcom crash that crippled its competitors.

Still, the company eventually had to find a source of income. The founders were concerned that if search results were influenced by advertising, it could lower the usefulness and accuracy of the search. They compromised by adding short, text-based ads that were clearly labeled as “Sponsored Links.” To cut costs, they created a form so that advertisers could submit their own ads and see them appear in minutes. They even added a ranking system so that more popular ads would rise to the top.

The combination of a superior product with less intrusive ads propelled Google to dizzying heights. In 2024, the company collected over $350 billion in revenue, with $112 billion of that as profit.

Information wants to be free

The web was, at first, all about text and the occasional image. In 1997, Netscape added the ability to embed small music files in the MIDI sound format that would play when a webpage was loaded. Because the songs only encoded notes, they sounded tinny and annoying on most computers. Good audio or songs with vocals required files that were too large to download over the Internet.

But this all changed with a new file format. In 1993, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute developed a compression technique that eliminated portions of audio that human ears couldn’t detect. Suzanne Vega’s song “Tom’s Diner” was used as the first test of the new MP3 standard.

Now, computers could play back reasonably high-quality songs from small files using software decoders. WinPlay3 was the first, but WinAmp, released in 1997, became the most popular. People started putting links to MP3 files on their personal websites. Then, in 1999, Shawn Fanning released a beta of a product he called Napster. This was a desktop application that relied on the Internet to let people share their MP3 collection and search everyone else’s.

Napster almost immediately ran into legal challenges from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It sparked a debate about sharing things over the Internet that persists to this day. Some artists agreed with the RIAA that downloading MP3 files should be illegal, while others (many of whom had been financially harmed by their own record labels) welcomed a new age of digital distribution. Napster lost the case against the RIAA and shut down in 2002. This didn’t stop people from sharing files, but replacement tools like eDonkey 2000, Limewire, Kazaa, and Bearshare lived in a legal gray area.

In the end, it was Apple that figured out a middle ground that worked for both sides. In 2003, two years after launching its iPod music player, Apple announced the Internet-only iTunes Store. Steve Jobs had signed deals with all five major record labels to allow legal purchasing of individual songs—astoundingly, without copy protection—for 99 cents each, or full albums for $10. By 2010, the iTunes Store was the largest music vendor in the world.

The Web turns 2.0

Tim Berners-Lee’s original vision for the web was simply to deliver and display information. It was like a library, but with hypertext links. But it didn’t take long for people to start experimenting with information flowing the other way. In 1994, Netscape 0.9 added new HTML tags like FORM and INPUT that let users enter text and, using a “Submit” button, send it back to the web server.

Early web servers didn’t know what to do with this text. But programmers developed extensions that let a server run programs in the background. The standardized “Common Gateway Interface” (CGI) made it possible for a “Submit” button to trigger a program (usually in a /cgi-bin/ directory) that could do something interesting with the submission, like talking to a database. CGI scripts could even generate new webpages dynamically and send them back to the user.

This intelligent two-way interaction changed the web forever. It enabled things like logging into an account on a website, web-based forums, and even uploading files directly to a web server. Suddenly, a website wasn’t just a page that you looked at. It could be a community where groups of interested people could interact with each other, sharing both text and images.

Geocities’ front page as it would have appeared in late 1996.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Geocities allowed anyone to create their own home on the web.

Jeremy Reimer

 

Dynamic webpages led to the rise of blogging, first as an experiment (some, like Justin Hall’s and Dave Winer’s, are still around today) and then as something anyone could do in their spare time. Websites in general became easier to create with sites like Geocities and Angelfire, which let people build their own personal dream house on the web for free. A community-run dynamic linking site, webring.org, connected similar websites together, encouraging exploration.

One of the best things to come out of Web 2.0 was Wikipedia. It arose as a side project of Nupedia, an online encyclopedia founded by Jimmy Wales, with articles written by volunteers who were subject matter experts. This process was slow, and the site only had 21 articles in its first year. Wikipedia, in contrast, allowed anyone to contribute and review articles, so it quickly outpaced its predecessor. At first, people were skeptical about letting random Internet users edit articles. But thanks to an army of volunteer editors and a set of tools to quickly fix vandalism, the site flourished. Wikipedia far surpassed works like the Encyclopedia Britannica in sheer numbers of articles while maintaining roughly equivalent accuracy.

Not every Internet innovation lived on a webpage. In 1988, Jarkko Oikarinen created a program called Internet Relay Chat (IRC), which allowed real-time messaging between individuals and groups. IRC clients for Windows and Macintosh were popular among nerds, but friendlier applications like PowWow (1994), ICQ (1996), and AIM (1997) brought messaging to the masses. Even Microsoft got in on the act with MSN Messenger in 1999. For a few years, this messaging culture was an important part of daily life at home, school, and work.

Animation, games, and video

While the web was evolving quickly, the slow speeds of dial-up modems limited the size of files you could upload to a website. Static images were the norm. Animation only appeared in heavily compressed GIF files with a few frames each.

But a new technology blasted past these limitations and unleashed a torrent of creativity on the web. In 1995, Macromedia released Shockwave Player, an add-on for Netscape Navigator. Along with its Director software, the combination allowed artists to create animations based on vector drawings. These were small enough to embed inside webpages.

Websites popped up to support this new content. Newgrounds.com, which started in 1995 as a Neo-Geo fan site, started collecting the best animations. Because Director was designed to create interactive multimedia for CD-ROM projects, it also supported keyboard and mouse input and had basic scripting. This meant that people could make simple games that ran in Shockwave. Newgrounds eagerly showcased these as well, giving many aspiring artists and game designers an entry point into their careers. Super Meat Boy, for example, was first prototyped on Newgrounds.

Putting actual video on the web seemed like something from the far future. But the future arrived quickly. After the dotcom crash of 2001, there were many unemployed web programmers with a lot of time on their hands to experiment with their personal projects. The arrival of broadband with cable modems and digital subscriber lines (DSL), combined with the new MPEG4 compression standard, made a lot of formerly impossible things possible.

In early 2005, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim launched Youtube.com. Initially, it was meant to be an online dating site, but that service failed. The site, however, had great technology for uploading and playing videos. It used Macromedia’s Flash, a new technology so similar to Shockwave that the company marketed it as Shockwave Flash. YouTube allowed anybody to upload videos up to ten minutes in length for free. It became so popular that Google bought it a year later for $1.65 billion.

All these technologies combined to provide ordinary people with the opportunity, however brief, to make an impact on popular culture. An early example was the All Your Base phenomenon. An animated GIF of an obscure, mistranslated Sega Genesis game inspired indie musicians The Laziest Men On Mars to create a song and distribute it as an MP3. The popular humor site somethingawful.com picked it up, and users in the Photoshop Friday forum thread created a series of humorous images to go along with the song. Then in 2001, the user Bad_CRC took the song and the best of the images and put them together in an animation they shared on Newgrounds. The YouTube version gained such wide popularity that it was reported on by USA Today.

You have no chance to survive make your time.

Media goes social

In the early 2000s, most websites were either blogs or forums—and frequently both. Forums had multiple discussion boards, both general and specific. They often leaned into a specific hobby or interest, and anyone with that interest could join. There were also a handful of dating websites, like kiss.com (1994), match.com (1995), and eHarmony.com (2000), that specifically tried to connect people who might have a romantic interest in each other.

The road to social media was a hazy and confusing merging of these two types of websites. There was classmates.com (1995) that served as a way to connect with former school chums, and the following year, the Swedish site lunarstorm.com opened with this mission:

Everyone has their own website called Krypin. Each babe [this word is an accurate translation] has their own Krypin where she or he introduces themselves, posts their diaries and their favorite files, which can be anything from photos and their own songs to poems and other fun stuff. Every LunarStormer also has their own guestbook where you can write if you don't really dare send a LunarEmail or complete a Friend Request.

In 1997, sixdegrees.com opened, based on the truism that everyone on earth is connected with six or fewer degrees of separation. Its About page said, “Our free networking services let you find the people you want to know through the people you already know.”

By the time friendster.com opened its doors in 2002, the concept of “friending” someone online was already well established, although it was still a niche activity. LinkedIn.com, launched the following year, used the excuse of business networking to encourage this behavior. But it was MySpace.com (2003) that was the first to gain significant traction.

MySpace was initially a Friendster clone written in just ten days by employees at eUniverse, an Internet marketing startup founded by Brad Greenspan. It became the company’s most successful product. MySpace combined the website-building ability of sites like GeoCities with social networking features. It took off incredibly quickly: in just three years, it surpassed Google as the most visited website in the United States. Hype around MySpace reached such a crescendo that Rupert Murdoch purchased it in 2005 for $580 million.

But a newcomer to the social media scene was about to destroy MySpace. Just as Google crushed its competitors, this startup won by providing a simpler, more functional, and less intrusive product. TheFaceBook.com began as Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommate’s attempt to replace their college’s online directory. Zuckerberg’s first student website, “Facemash,” had been created by breaking into Harvard’s network, and its sole feature was to provide “Hot or Not” comparisons of student photos. Facebook quickly spread to other universities, and in 2006 (after dropping the “the”), it was opened to the rest of the world.

Facebook won the social networking wars by focusing on the rapid delivery of new features. The company’s slogan, “Move fast and break things,” encouraged this strategy. The most prominent feature, added in 2006, was the News Feed. It generated a list of posts, selected out of thousands of potential updates for each user based on who they followed and liked, and showed it on their front page. Combined with a technique called “infinite scrolling,” first invented for Microsoft’s Bing Image Search by Hugh E. Williams in 2005, it changed the way the web worked forever.

The algorithmically generated News Feed created new opportunities for Facebook to make profits. For example, businesses could boost posts for a fee, which would make them appear in news feeds more often. These blurred the lines between posts and ads.

Facebook was also successful in identifying up-and-coming social media sites and buying them out before they were able to pose a threat. This was made easier thanks to Onavo, a VPN that monitored its users’ activities and resold the data. Facebook acquired Onavo in 2013. It was shut down in 2019 due to continued controversy over the use of private data.

Social media transformed the Internet, drawing in millions of new users and starting a consolidation of website-visiting habits that continues to this day. But something else was about to happen that would shake the Internet to its core.

Don’t you people have phones?

For years, power users had experimented with getting the Internet on their handheld devices. IBM’s Simon phone, which came out in 1994, had both phone and PDA features. It could send and receive email. The Nokia 9000 Communicator, released in 1996, even had a primitive text-based web browser.

Later phones like the Blackberry 850 (1999), the Nokia 9210 (2001), and the Palm Treo (2002), added keyboards, color screens, and faster processors. In 1999, the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) was released, which allowed mobile phones to receive and display simplified, phone-friendly pages using WML instead of the standard HTML markup language.

But despite their popularity with business users, these phones never broke into the mainstream. That all changed in 2007 when Steve Jobs got on stage and announced the iPhone. Now, every webpage could be viewed natively on the phone’s browser, and zooming into a section was as easy as pinching or double-tapping. The one exception was Flash, but a new HTML 5 standard promised to standardize advanced web features like animation and video playback.

Google quickly changed its Android prototype from a Blackberry clone to something more closely resembling the iPhone. Android’s open licensing structure allowed companies around the world to produce inexpensive smartphones. Even mid-range phones were still much cheaper than computers. This technology allowed, for the first time, the entire world to become connected through the Internet.

Graph of personal computer and smartphone sales each year, alongside total Internet users.

Jeremy Reimer

 

The logarithmic scale allows us to see key events in technology history.

Jeremy Reimer

 

The exploding market of phone users also propelled the massive growth of social media companies like Facebook and Twitter. It was a lot easier now to snap a picture of a live event with your phone and post it instantly to the world. Optimists pointed to the remarkable events of the Arab Spring protests as proof that the Internet could help spread democracy and freedom. But governments around the world were just as eager to use these new tools, except their goals leaned more toward control and crushing dissent.

The backlash

Technology has always been a double-edged sword. But in recent years, public opinion about the Internet has shifted from being mostly positive to increasingly negative.

The combination of mobile phones, social media algorithms, and infinite scrolling led to the phenomenon of “doomscrolling,” where people spend hours every day reading “news” that is tuned for maximum engagement by provoking as many people as possible. The emotional toil caused by doomscrolling has been shown to cause real harm. Even more serious is the fallout from misinformation and hate speech, like the genocide in Myanmar that an Amnesty International report claims was amplified on Facebook.

As companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook grew into near-monopolies, they inevitably lost sight of their original mission in favor of a never-ending quest for more money. The process, dubbed enshittification by Cory Doctorow, shifts the focus first from users to advertisers and then to shareholders.

Chasing these profits has fueled the rise of generative AI, which threatens to turn the entire Internet into a sea of soulless gray soup. Google is now forcing AI summaries at the top of web searches, which reduce traffic to websites and often provide dangerous misinformation. But even if you ignore the AI summaries, the sites you find underneath may also be suspect. Once-trusted websites have laid off staff and replaced them with AI, generating an endless series of new articles written by nobody. A web where AIs comment on AI-generated Facebook posts that link to AI-generated articles, which are then AI-summarized by Google, seems inhuman and pointless.

Where from here?

The history of the Internet can be roughly divided into three phases. The first, from 1969 to 1990, was all about the inventors: people like Vint Cerf, Steve Crocker, and Robert Taylor. These folks were part of a small group of computer scientists who figured out how to get different types of computers to talk to each other and to other networks.

The next phase, from 1991 to 1999, was a whirlwind that was fueled by entrepreneurs, people like Jerry Yang and Jeff Bezos. They latched on to Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of the World Wide Web and created companies that lived entirely in this new digital landscape. This set off a manic phase of exponential growth and hype, which peaked in early 2001 and crashed a few months later.

The final phase, from 2000 through today, has primarily been about the users. New companies like Google and Facebook may have reaped the greatest financial rewards during this time, but none of their successes would have been possible without the contributions of ordinary people like you and me. Every time we typed something into a text box and hit the “Submit” button, we created a tiny piece of a giant web of content. Even the generative AIs that pretend to make new things today are merely regurgitating words, phrases, and pictures that were created and shared by people.

There is a growing sense of nostalgia today for the old Internet, when it felt like a place, and the joy of discovery was around every corner. “Using the old Internet felt like digging for treasure,” said YouTube commenter MySoftCrow. “Using the current Internet feels like getting buried alive.”

Ars community member MichaelHurd added his own thoughts: “I feel the same way. It feels to me like the core problem with the modern Internet is that websites want you to stay on them for as long as possible, but the World Wide Web is at its best when sites connect to each other and encourage people to move between them. That's what hyperlinks are for!”

Despite all the doom surrounding the modern Internet, it remains largely open. Anyone can pay about $5 per month for a shared Linux server and create a personal website containing anything they can think of, using any software they like, even their own. And for the most part, anyone, on any device, anywhere in the world, can access that website.

Ultimately, the fate of the Internet depends on the actions of every one of us. That’s why I’m leaving the final words in this series of articles to you. What would your dream Internet of the future look and feel like? The comments section is open.

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Posted Tuesday 23 September 2025 at 4:03 am AEST (my time).

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Quick links:

1. Windows 10 and 11
2. Windows Insider Program
3. Updates are available
4. Reviews are in
5. Gaming news

Windows 11 and Windows 10

Here, we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And, of course, you may find a word or two about older versions.

In addition to acknowledging a new Windows 11 bug with DRM/HDCP video playback, Microsoft lifted one of the existing upgrade blocks, giving more users the chance to update to Windows 11 version 24H2. This time, Microsoft resolved the bug with apps becoming unresponsive when using the camera.

The original certificates for Secure Boot, a key Windows 11 hardware requirement, expire in June 2026, and to help users prepare for this event, Microsoft published a detailed FAQ document outlining what customers should know about updating their security certificates. Spoiler alert: There is nothing to do if you let Microsoft manage updates on your system and do not mess with Windows Update.

Windows 10 support is ending soon. To help you make up your mind and switch, Microsoft published a new blog post where it outlined how well its Windows on Arm efforts are going, with plenty of popular apps now available natively on Copilot+ PCs. While some think we will see a massive exodus to Linux, new data shows that users do not rush to switch from Windows 10 to Linux.

Ever felt like having a Google Search widget on your desktop? If yes, good news: Google's new Windows app lets you have Google Search and local search in a single UI. The app is available as part of Search Lab, and you can download it now.

Also, the Backup app for Windows 10 and 11 is getting Intune support.

Windows Insider Program

Here is what Microsoft released for Windows Insiders this week:

Recent Windows 11 preview builds have a bunch of interesting stuff hidden inside. For example, the Settings app is getting a new "Keyboard" section with some options coming straight from the legacy Control Panel, giving you fewer reasons to open this old part of Windows history.

Additionally, Microsoft released new updates for certain inbox apps. Paint now lets you save files as projects and adjust layer opacity. Notepad now has free AI text processing on Copilot+ PCs, and Snipping Tool allows annotating the screen before actually taking screenshots.

Updates are available

This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties.

Microsoft 365 apps are getting more AI-related stuff. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced that Copilot Chat is now available in apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. You can talk to Copilot about your document, ask it to help you analyze a spreadsheet, ask something, pitch ideas, automate tasks, and more.

Speaking of Office apps, Microsoft issued a warning that Office 2016 and Office 2019 will soon be out of support. Microsoft will pull the plug on these app suites on October 14, 2025. If you are still using Office 2016 or Office 2019, it is time to upgrade to something newer. Microsoft not only wants you to leave the soon-to-be-unsupported apps, but it also urges everyone once again to use the universally hated new Outlook app.

Finally, Microsoft revealed that the Microsoft 365 Copilot app will soon be forced onto Windows PCs.

Firefox 143 arrived this week with some interesting changes, such as the ability to run websites as UI-less applications, Copilot integration, xHE-AAC playback on supported systems, Windows UI Automation support for improved accessibility, and more. Shortly after that, Firefox 143.0.1 arrived with a single fix for crashing tabs.

Vivaldi, a feature-packed Chromium-based browser, received a big update to version 7.6. It brings two big changes: deeper customization with the ability to drastically adjust the looks, and the new Tab button that simplifies tab management in a single place.

Google Chrome also got a big update this week. In fact, the company claims that it was the biggest update ever, which brought Gemini, AI Mode, agentic capabilities, and more.

Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting:

• Microsoft fixed PowerToys installation issues in version 0.94.1
• Windows 365 Boot received a bunch of new features

• Microsoft's massive $7B Wisconsin investment unlocks new AI innovation hub

• Developers can now access official Microsoft docs faster through the new MCP server

• Microsoft announces historic $30 billion investment in the UK, its largest ever

   

Here are the latest drivers and firmware updates released this week:

• AMD released guidance about the 1603 error when installing graphics and chipset drivers.
• AMD 25.9.2 with support for Dying Light: The Beast and the RX 7700

Reviews are in

Here is the hardware and software we reviewed this week

This week, Robbie Khan dropped a review of three headphones that cater to three completely different wallets. If you are interested in comparing headphones that range from $649 to $4,500, check out Robbie's Review here.

Steven Parker reviewed the REDMAGIC 10S Pro, a gaming phone with some serious specs, albeit not without quirks and some annoyances. If you are looking for a powerful Android smartphone, be sure to read the review here.

The upcoming 4X strategy game Endless Legend 2 was also reviewed by Pulasthi Ariyasinghe this week. The early access release is trying out a brand-new twist for the classic genre to improve on the mid- and late-game. Check out the complete review here.

On the gaming side

Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts, and more.

Remember when, earlier this year, Microsoft increased the price of its consoles and accessories? It did it again. This week, the company announced new prices for its consoles. The Xbox Series S now starts at $399.99, while the top-of-the-line Xbox Series X with 2TB of storage will set you back a whopping $799.99.

Microsoft released a big update for the Xbox app on PC. It now serves as a universal launcher for all your games across different storefronts, not just the Microsoft Store. Steam, Epic Games Store, GoG, you name it. Each game in the Aggregated Gaming Library has a store badge that indicates its origin and helps you sort things out. The new unified launcher will be particularly useful on the upcoming ASUS Xbox ROG Ally and other handheld devices. Additionally, Microsoft started rolling out Gaming Copilot for Game Bar and Xbox apps on mobile devices.

Microsoft also announced a new wave of games for Game Pass subscribers. The latest additions include RoadCraft, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, Frostpunk 2, Wobbly Life, Hades, Sworn, Visions of Mana, and a lot more. Note that Ninja Gaiden Sigma, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Ninja Gaiden 3 Razor’s Edge, and Terra Invicta are leaving the catalog at the end of this month.

If you have an Nvidia GeForce NOW subscription, you can play more games now. The company announced a fresh wave of games, including Fata Deum - The God Sim, Town to City, Goblin Cleanup, Project Winter, Jump Space, Field of Glory II: Medieval, and more. By the way, GeForce NOW members can get Borderlands 4 as a subscription bonus.

Valve also has some news for you, especially if you run 32-bit Windows 10. On January 1, 2026, Valve will stop supporting Steam on 32-bit Windows 10 installations. While the client will continue running for some time, users are strongly recommended to switch to 64-bit Windows 10 or Windows 11 to remain supported.

Electronic Arts revealed some interesting details about optimizing Battlefield 6 for the Xbox Series S. As it turned out, having a lower-spec console motivated developers to do better and put effort into ensuring the game runs well. This, in turn, helped improve performance on more powerful devices, such as the Xbox Series X.

Deals and freebies

The Epic Games Store is giving away two games: Samorost 2 and Project Winter. Both are free to claim until next Thursday. And if you are in the mood for some spending on PC games, check out this week's Weekend PC Game Deals article.

Other gaming news includes the following:

• Grounded 2 gets a test environment for players to try out upcoming early access features

• Age of Empires II: DE expansion Chronicles: Alexander the Great announced with a new campaign

• Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remake will reportedly lean into being an RPG experience

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Posted Monday 22 September 2025 at 2:15 am AEST (my time).

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Paul's Hardware (1.53M subscribers)

September 29, 2025

Video length: 10m 59s

Nvidia and Intel Have an Announcement - Tech News Sept 21

0:00 Welcome to Paul’s Tech News - Sept 21, 2025 

1:42 NVIDIA invests $5 Billion in Rival Intel 

4:27 The Borderlands 4 Situation 

TECH BRIEFS 

7:11 Expect HDD, SSD shortages as AI rewrites the rules of storage hierarchy 

7:58 Asus is 'actively investigating' gaming laptop stuttering issues 

8:47 Cherries 

8:56 Intel BMG-G31 (Arc B770) GPU spotted with 16GB VRAM config

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Posted Sunday 21 September 2025 at 5:40 pm AEST (my time).

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If you're the owner of an Anker power bank, this is your cue to check its model number. It could mean the difference between a charged phone and a meltdown. The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued an official warning on September 18 (via The Verge) involving five Anker power banks that the company voluntarily recalled in June 2025.

At the time of the initial voluntary recall a few months ago, Anker stated that "the likelihood of malfunction is considered minimal," but "out of an abundance of caution," the company decided to "initiate a voluntary global recall" of the five affected power banks.

There are believed to be approximately 481,000 affected Anker power banks currently in circulation. Now, as detailed in the official warning from the CPSC, there have been 33 reports of fire and explosion incidents. The CPSC says that "four minor burn injuries" and one case of "substantial property damage" were reported.

Which Anker power banks are affected by the recall?

It's been just over a week since Gearbox Software's long-awaited PvE looter shooter Borderlands 4 dropped on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PS5, and it's been an interesting launch period to say the least of things. While the core gameplay, story, and presentation of the title have been met with near-unanimous praise, its performance on both PC and consoles has been widely criticized for numerous and severe issues.

The problem was severe enough to send Borderlands 4 falling to a 'Mixed' review score on Steam at launch, and while the number of positive reviews has increased steadily since then, the game's rating hasn't changed. It hasn't exactly helped that Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford took to social media to argue against player reports, either.

Gearbox released one large update the day after Borderlands 4's September 12 launch "to help improve stability for a wide range of PCs," though at best, it seems that it was only moderately effective at doing so, as tons of fans still report major issues with crashes, framerate drops, and more.

Now, a second update has come to the game on Thursday that addresses a variety of its known crashing issues, along with a small handful of progression mishaps and a bug that was causing the Gilded Glory Pack — weapons from Borderlands 4's preorder bonus — to appear in regular chests.

In the future, Intel will make CPUs with Nvidia graphics inside — among other things, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirmed today that Nvidia will contribute “GPU chiplets” that Intel can place alongside its x86 CPU cores instead of the Arc integrated graphics it develops in-house today.

But, at least for now, Intel says that doesn’t mean Intel’s own graphics are going away. “We’re not discussing specific roadmaps at this time, but the collaboration is complementary to Intel’s roadmap and Intel will continue to have GPU product offerings,” Intel told PCWorld, reiterating the commitment that Intel’s Michelle Johnston Holthaus made before she abruptly left the company.

Like PCWorld, I’m skeptical that Intel will truly push on graphics when Nvidia can do that job, particularly at a time when Intel keeps carving off pieces of itself to save on costs! Why would Intel invest $$$ into catching up with Nvidia (and AMD) when Nvidia’s no longer truly a competitor? Even if it continues, would Intel really give it its utmost? But perhaps there’s time for Intel’s existing efforts to notch another win like the B580, or the surprisingly good followup to MSI’s Claw handheld.

For now, we’ll “stay tuned.”

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Posted Friday 19 September 2025 at 12:12 pm AEST (my time).

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Perhaps the key feature of this partnership is the use of NVIDIA NVLink, which will connect NVIDIA's AI and computing tech with Intel's x86 CPUs. For data centers, Intel will create specialized CPUs designed by NVIDIA, which the latter would also include in its AI platforms. For personal computers, Intel will develop system-on-chip (SoC) products that include NVIDIA's RTX graphics technology, for creating PCs that need top performance in both processing and graphics.

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in the press release:

“AI is powering a new industrial revolution and reinventing every layer of the computing stack — from silicon to systems to software. At the heart of this reinvention is NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture. This historic collaboration tightly couples NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing stack with Intel’s CPUs and the vast x86 ecosystem — a fusion of two world-class platforms. Together, we will expand our ecosystems and lay the foundation for the next era of computing.”

NVIDIA will put its $5 billion investment into buying Intel shares at a price of $23.28 per share.

Lip-Bu Tan, CEO of Intel, added:

“Intel’s x86 architecture has been foundational to modern computing for decades — and we are innovating across our portfolio to enable the workloads of the future. Intel’s leading data center and client computing platforms, combined with our process technology, manufacturing, and advanced packaging capabilities, will complement NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing leadership to enable new breakthroughs for the industry. We appreciate the confidence Jensen and the NVIDIA team have placed in us with their investment and look forward to the work ahead as we innovate for customers and grow our business.”

Intel is currently in the midst of a major revival and transformation under its new leadership. After facing a significant loss of $19 billion in 2024 and years of strategic challenges, Intel is making bold moves like reducing its workforce and major restructuring across the board to regain its footing in the semiconductor and AI space, which has become super competitive in recent years.

The Trump administration has also made a historic $8.9 billion investment in the Intel common stock, which was built on the prior US CHIPS and Science Act grant. With the partnership with NVIDIA, Intel's revival story just got another boost.

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Posted Friday 19 September 2025 at 12:10 pm AEST (my time).

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Anonymous sources speaking to Jeux Vidéo Magazine, which has dropped accurate Ubisoft pieces before, say the Black Flag remake is taking elements from the publisher's recent stream of RPG entries. If it's correct, this will mean skill trees, inventory systems, levels for enemies, and stats for any loot players earn.

At the same time, the pirate gameplay has supposedly been expanded with hours of new content by re-adding cut sections from the original release, but at the cost of the modern-day gameplay. This means the title might not have any link to the plot that happens outside of the Animus, where players take the role of a developer uncovering a Templar plot at the heart of Abstergo Entertainment.

Moreover, loading screens are reportedly being scrapped too, letting players go from islands to their ships and begin sailing anywhere as a single sequence thanks to the upgrade to the Anvil Engine, which powers games like Assassin's Creed Shadows, while also offering new gameplay content inside smaller islands that can be found in the world.

The report ends saying that Ubisoft is currently targeting a March 2026 launch window for the Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remake, but there may be internal delays that push this back to later in the year.

As always, take unconfirmed reports with a grain of salt until something official materializes out of Ubisoft.

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Posted Thursday 18 September 2025 at 5:18 pm AEST (my time).

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It doesn't look like Age of Empires II DLC will ever stop coming. The newest announcement is bringing another entry in the Chronicles historical DLC plan for the real-time strategy game's Definitive Edition. Check out the trailer for Alexander the Great for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition above.

Just like the last Chronicles DLC pack, development partner CaptureAge is the studio behind this project. The Chronicles: Alexander the Great expansion comes with a brand-new campaign touting 18 scenarios to play through, all with animated mosaic cutscenes, a customizable campaign army, new technologies, visual and audio upgrades, and more.

"Experience Alexander’s legendary exploits, from his bold teenage ambitions to his triumphant march across Persia, his audacious expedition to South Asia, and his dramatic return journey," explains the studio. "Crafted with the well-known Chronicles narrative flair and meticulous historical authenticity, this expansion delivers an immersive campaign experience brimming with drama, strategy, and replayability."

Players will be taking control of Macedonians, Thracians, and Puru civilizations inside the campaigns, controlling everything from Achaemenid chariots to Puru elephants. Overhauled siege unit graphics as well as 13 new music tracks for both campaign and skirmish modes are included too.

Here's how the studio described the three new civilizations and their specializations found in the campaign:

• Macedonians
  • Conquer the world with the highly-drilled Macedonian army. Use the long pikes of their Phalangite infantry to pin the enemy in place, then crush them with the mighty Companion cavalry! Build Fortified Outposts to stage lightning assaults and move your units to the frontlines faster.
• Thracians
  • Launch devastating raids with your swift Rhomphaia Warriors, and profit from them with unique technologies that generate gold from combat. A variety of bonuses and technologies turn Thracian skirmishers from neglected trash units to deadly fighters!
• Puru
  • Unleash the elephants! The Puru, a powerful Punjab people, can call upon these extraordinary beasts to flatten their foes. Build an army that combines brute force with precise ranged support with archers who wield devastating bamboo longbows.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Chronicles: Alexander the Great is out on October 14. It is available now for pre-order on Steam and the Microsoft Store for PC and Xbox with a 15% off discount for a limited time, dropping the price to $12.74. A PlayStation 5 version of the DLC is also incoming, but it will only be available at launch without any pre-order offers.

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Posted Thursday 18 September 2025 at 5:17 pm AEST (my time).

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After a heavy backlash from the community regarding this DLC decision, Paradox has decided to make the duo a part of the base game. With this major change, the Lasombra and Toreador clans, touting shadow-wielding and enthralling powers, respectively, will be available to players for no extra cost.

Check out the new Bloodlines 2 overview trailer below to check out all the clans in action:

"Thanks to our community for the frank feedback on Bloodlines 2 and the Premium Edition. That feedback made it clear: Lasombra and Toreador belong in the base game, so that is what we are doing," said Marco Behrmann, White Wolf Publishing Executive Vice President and Bloodlines 2 Executive Producer. "We’d also like to thank The Chinese Room for their quick turnaround on the concepts for the post-launch Story Packs. We’re constantly impressed by their creativity and skill in weaving enticing narrative threads that expand on the main story in Bloodlines 2."

Paradox also announced new story expansion packs today that will be a part of the Premium Edition and the Expansion Pass. Dubbed Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 - Loose Cannon (Brujah Sheriff Benny’s story) and The Flower & The Flame (Toreador Primogen Ysabella’s path), these will offer additional story content as post-launch premium DLC.

Loose Cannon is slated to launch in the second quarter of 2026, while The Flower & The Flame has a 2026 quarter three launch window.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is releasing on October 21, 2025, on Steam, GOG, Epic Games Store, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

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Posted Thursday 18 September 2025 at 5:16 pm AEST (my time).

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As per CNBC, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has expressed disappointment over the chip ban, stating, “We probably contributed more to the China market than most countries have. And I’m disappointed with what I see.” Huang added that there are “larger agendas to work out between China and the United States,” and he is fully aware of this.

Jensen Huang also told reporters that the company has informed analysts not to include China in their financial forecasts. “The reason for that is because it will largely be determined by discussions between the U.S. and Chinese governments,” Huang added.

Huang described Nvidia’s experience in the Chinese market as “a bit of a rollercoaster,” while emphasizing that the company would continue supporting the Chinese government and local companies as they see fit.

After Nvidia was banned from selling its state-of-the-art AI chips to China, the company developed a scaled-down version, called the H20, to continue serving Chinese customers. While the chip offers lower computing power compared to Nvidia’s flagship product, it remains in high demand among Chinese companies and even the Chinese military.

However, following Trump’s entry into the White House, the U.S. government informed Nvidia that it would require export licenses to sell H20 chips to China. After several months of back-and-forth negotiations, Nvidia agreed to give 15 percent of its Chinese H20 sales to the U.S. government in order to lift the export ban.

While everything seemed favorable for Nvidia, reports emerged that the U.S. had apparenly requested Nvidia to embed a kill switch, tracker, or backdoor in the chips exported to China. The news prompted Chinese authorities to instruct local firms to halt purchases of Nvidia chips.

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Posted Thursday 18 September 2025 at 4:38 am AEST (my time).

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